Mandy Taylor and her team work to prepare parents for reunification after foster care. An adoptive parent and former foster parent herself, Mandy has a heart for helping parents provide a safe, stable home for their kids. In May, Mandy recorded a podcast about how COVID-19 is disrupting the reunification process and affecting parents. Below is a portion of her interview.
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There’s a common assumption in foster care that parents don’t care about their kids or aren’t trying to get their kids back. What’s been your experience?
Birth parents love their children immensely. They adore their children. They wish they could be with them. That’s the foremost thing I want people to know. We primarily learn parenting skills from our parents and from people around us; many of the parents I work with grew up in difficult situations with parents who were not well-equipped to parent. They often parent the way they were parented, and often that leads to foster care. A key part of my role is helping them build better parenting skills.
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How is COVID-19 affecting parents who are working toward reunification?
In general, the reunification plan for a lot of our parents involves becoming substance-free—using substances (drugs, alcohol) is a learned coping mechanism. Many also take classes on parenting strategies and budgeting. They may also be going to counseling and processing the trauma they’ve been through.
COVID-19 adds another dimension for parents who struggle with mental health and depression. To not see their kids for an extended amount of time—and to not understand when it will be safe to see their kids again— really adds to their depression and anxiety. Many of our parents are trying their best right now, but it’s a real struggle.
As the stay-at-home order took place, we had children who were close to going home, and parents had worked hard to get to that point—then we had to stop that process. Reunifications were put on hold for a period of time, although they’re now slowly being opened up again. But that pause disrupts the momentum for families. Moving kids home after foster care is a slow progression. It starts with supervised then unsupervised visits, then progresses to overnights and weekends. So we lost momentum for kids who had already begun that process.
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What do you say to parents when so much is unknown, and you can’t give them a date to look forward to?
I encourage them to take it one day at a time. In more than five years at Bethany, I’ve seen parents struggle the most when kids are getting ready to come back home. That seems like it should be the easiest period of time; but for parents, that resolution feels so close yet so far away. I encourage parents not to lose momentum, not to give up hope. I try to connect with parents more during this time—but even more so during the pandemic—because I know this is a real struggle for parents.
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What are some challenges foster parents are responding to in this crisis?
Foster parents are now in a different situation than they feel they signed up for. With schools closed, the kids are home all day, and foster parents are responsible for the child’s education—without the support of meals, learning specialists, and counselors that are available at most schools. So that’s a very different dynamic.
I think the pandemic holds both challenges and opportunities for foster parents. On one hand, many kids in foster care have experienced food and housing insecurity, parental depression or anxiety, and other challenges. Now add a global pandemic, and some of their own anxieties will start to come out. Foster parents will have to work to alleviate some of those things for kids. On the other hand, with more time at home together, foster parents have an ability to connect with kids on a different level than they have before.
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During the stay-at-home order, weekly visits between kids and their parents have gone virtual. While it’s not the same as face-to-face, have you seen any unexpected benefits?
Doing Zoom visits from home is giving foster parents an opportunity to engage more with the child’s parents. They can say hello and see some of the interactions that go on between the parents and their kids.
I understand this may add a level of anxiety to open their home and family to Zoom. I talk with parents about getting to see where your child is, that they have toys. Or kids will show their parents their bedroom. They get to see what their kids like to do. One little boy is always jumping on the trampoline or building with blocks during his virtual visits. Parents can see what their kids have around them and how they interact with foster parents—signs that the child feels comfortable and safe for this time that they’re apart.
Foster parents also see a glimpse of what parents’ homes are like. Normally, they might see each other briefly in the lobby at Bethany and say hello once a week. These virtual visits are one way they can engage and enter each other’s worlds.
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